


No name for a nobody

by GloomyMonday



Category: Joker (2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-31 19:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloomyMonday/pseuds/GloomyMonday
Summary: A man who most people call Arthur Fleck (or Carnival, or Happy or...) tries to pick up the pieces of his mind and read the name they spell out.AKA What if some filthy executive had paid me to ghostwrite a book tie-in to the film? For starters, I'd be wealthier.





	1. Names to choose from

So he enters. 

In front of him there are not people but hints of glasses over noses, glints from expensive smiles, pieces of disjointed clothing. An audience all drenched in an almost blue darkness. He walks over to the mic in the middle, overly conscious of the sound of his steps like the hammering of nails on a coffin. He’s now in front of it. Someone coughs, someone moves, someone scratches their skin. He’s about to introduce himself.

“My name is...”

But he hasn’t decided on a name yet.

“Arthur”, he thinks as he looks into the almost-empty fridge. Arthur was what almost everyone called him: his boss, his therapist, colleagues… It also said so in his ID so it must have been his name. But lately he had been feeling as if he had picked it up from a dead person, and it felt both morbid and disrespectful to keep using it. 

“Carnival”, he thinks as he picks up a tomato. It was a name he had chosen for himself, a name that could not possibly have been stolen. It was his and his only. But it was under that name that people where most heinous to him —laughing, pointing, hitting, insulting… He had chosen it because it brought to his mind the idea of bright colours and dazzling lights, loud music and funfare. Maybe he himself had corroded the word; sometime somehow.

“Happy”, he thinks as he holds a knife in his hand. Happy, what a twisted joke. But whenever he heard it spoken from his mother’s lips he couldn’t help but feel a slight something akin to tenderness. Some kind of warmth that made the cold feel colder. He watches his blurred reflection on the dull knife and it doesn’t look happy. If he lost that name, the chance of it being uttered by someone who loved him —what would it be then? No, there’s no way someone else could call him that, definitely not himself.

He started cutting up the tomato in thin slices. For the time being, he had no name.


	2. Carnival

The morning of the next day he bears the name Carnival as he paints his face white in front of the cracked mirror. Carnival is a funny, energetic, talented clown. He wears bright clothing and colourful makeup and even does some magic tricks. Today he also has a loaded revolver in his pocket. He can feel its weight as he walks, a constant reminder. Today he is, on top of everything else, safe.

“My name is Carnival,” he says to the audience, “and I…”

The words he looks for don’t come easy. And they only got more and more difficult to reach from wherever it is they lied. He looks around but there’s no one else on the stage —the sofas are empty, the chair behind the desk as well.

“You, little girl. Come over here, please,” he says as he points to the short kid on the first row. She gets up reluctantly and stands a few meters from him. “What is your favourite animal?”

“Rabbit.” She answers instantly.

He reaches out for a few balloons but stumbles instead upon the cold touch of steel. There’s nothing else there. The girl is looking at him unamused, waiting for something to bring her out of her boredom. He, on the other hand, he just can’t finish the joke.

He’s on the underground resting his head against the glass. The whole place is filled with a piss-colored light that draws sharp shadows. The gun that was supposed to act as a totemic charm “backfired” so to speak and he ended up being, well, fired. He should have written it down on his notebook but couldn’t find the strength to do so. Everything beneath the rugged costume had become a full-fledged nothingness. He hadn’t even been able to get up on his stop, as if he was meant to never move again.

A bunch of preppy boys cross the metallic doors. They cut the silence with their laughter. They start bothering a young woman sitting in front of them. They, they, they… The fill everything within seconds. Arthur dressed as Carnival starts laughing. He becomes louder than the laddish group, louder than the strange noises of the underground. And he’s all too aware of it, feeling as always like he’s a broken jar that can no longer hold back the water. Drowning in himself.

"Send in the clowns", they sing as they dance towards him. Arthur dressed as Carnival knows what happens next and tries to convince himself not to feel pain. But the blows always hit and the blows always hurt, no matter the amount of anticipation. He tried to think of what he always thought about when this happened to him —that he would be back home some time after, he would cook something nice and warm, he would watch TV with his mother; he would do all of those things, eventually.

But when one of the kids kicks him in the stomach he feels something solid as well. Carnival remembers that today he is, on top of everything else, safe. He reaches out for his gun and almost immediately there’s a bang, almost as if they were unrelated events. Also unrelated is the red colouring a starch-white shirt or the screams or the running about. All that happens next is a series of things that happen by chance while he has a revolver in his hand. That’s what it is. It probably does bear no connection to the rushing of his blood, the intoxicating feeling of control, the ecstasy of it all. Why would it feel that way to be part of this whole fest?

The noise, the noise is what he keeps on thinking about —the metallic sounds of the underground, steps of boys running for their life, screams that mean nothing, loud gunshots. An the audience clapping on top of it. It’s all a storm of sounds. They start leaving one by one until all there is left are the echoes of frantic running and frantic chase. Gunshot. Its echo. Loud whining. Gunshot. Echo.

He now figures out the joke.

“Oh, sorry. I have no rabbit for you,” he says shrugging in an exaggerated manner to the girl, to the audience. He takes out his gun for everyone to see. “I shot them all.”

Does the audience laugh? Do they clap after? He can’t tell. A bigger question, does Carnival kill? Is Carnival a funny, energetic, talented clown —and a killer? He would know if he knew whether the audience liked the joke. But all he gets is nothing. Not even echo.


End file.
